What would prompt a perfectly stable minded person like me to suddenly spend 3 hrs of time and 120 rupees at a local theater ? Well the answer could lie in the story, screenplay , acting , or effects in a movie . But sadly that was not the reason this time . The reason this time was that I was not really in a proper state of mind and had been pretty shaken up from being sick for the past week.

So lets analyse the bad choice I made.

Rajapattai is essentially a commercial pot boiler as you can easily guess from the trailer . I have nothing against that , but still I expect a bit of brain effort from the director and the writer .

The real story :

The actual story :

அனல் முருகன் (Anal Murugan ) works as a small time actor in movies and aims to become a Big Villain actor. He encounters Dhakshina moorthi in a temple and saves him from a bunch of goons and learns that the goons were sent by Dhakshina moorthi’s son who is after his father wealth . So being the kind-hearted person he is, Vikram (If you still haven’t guessed who Anal Murugan is.) takes him into his custody and protects him.

Dhakshina moorthi’s son wants to get into politics so He needs to give the land on which his father has built and orphanage to MAMA Party Leader AKKA (Who incidentally is revealed later in the film to have been a pimp in the beginning only to climb up the ladder and become a politician).

Then a whole bunch of stuff happens and some how the real villains in the movie get the land , and as expected AKKA betrays Dhakshina moorthi’s son who now joins vikram and tries to get his father’s land back.

To get the land back they must take out the Big Boss Wapa, and as usual vikram does the job and proves AKKA’s crimes and AKKA is killed . The children get their orphanage back.

In the mean time there is a Romance that brews between Vikram and Deeksha Seth, Nothing special here.

That about wraps it up.

The Acting :

Vikram has really put in the effort to look like the character he plays . This is a really amazing transformation after Deiva Thirumagal , and as usual he impresses with his acting skills even though his character suffers from a bad case of cliché syndrome.

The vetran telugu actor K.Vishwanath really impresses in the scenes where he give romance tips to vikram , but other than that he doesn’t have a lot of scope.

Deeksha Seth is passable as the female lead looks gorgeous and she tries to show bit emotion in the extremely limited scope that she has, as eye candy. Its commendable that she has not fallen into the glamour trap nor has she stood with a blank face all the time like many heroines who I do not want to mention.

Pradeep Rawat as wapa is not really that frightening a villain as he was in Ghajini .

The actress who plays AKKA needs to do some research on Sornakka (ச்வர்ணக்கா ) characters like for example the female villain from DHOOL (Another Vikram film) , She goes around with the same expression on her face for the entire length of her screen time .

I have followed the hype over Delhi Belly for some time now , and let me tell you it fully lives up to its expectation . Delhi belly is by far one of the best risky decisions taken by Aamir Khan.

A day before the film released I learnt that there will be 2 versions of the Movie , the original Hinglish Version and a dubbed Hindi Version . Unfortunately I had already booked the tickets so I hoped that the version I would be watching would be the Hinglish one , but as hopes go I ended up with the dubbed Hindi Version which incidentally has toned down dialogues . But to my Surprise I had under estimated my ability to understand Hindi , which has greatly Improved since the Time of 3 Idiots , So I could actually understand more than 95% of the dialogues spoken.

Delhi Belly is the story of Tashi (Imran Khan) and his room mates Arup (Vir Das ) and Nitin (Kunal Roy kapoor) , who live in an old apartment . Tashi is engaged to Sonia (Shenaz Treasurywala) . Tashi is a journalist and Nitin is his photographer while Arup is a Cartoonist .

These blokes lead an average life until they get caught up in a mess with a smuggling syndicate lead by [Vijay Razz] .

In the mean time Tashi starts falling in love with a special Correspondent Menaka (Poorna Jagannathan) , while Nitin gets the worst food poisoning of his life by eating tandoori chicken from a road side vendor , and Arup gets dumped by his Girlfriend who plans to get married to an NRI .

What happens next is a series of events which are extremely funny , entertaining , and some thing which is not to be missed . But take this with a grain of Salt because this is not the usual brand of humour that we have come to expect from Bollywood , The humour in this film is either extremely brilliant or overly offensive depending on how you look at .

This film comes with a good number of pros , first this is a very new kind of film in the lines of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels , Snatch , and The Hangover , secondly this kind of film is very new to Indian Cinema , and Finally No other currently playing film will make you laugh so much .

There comes only one Con with this film , This film is not for Family Audience and children , This film is not for those who get easily offended , this is not those people who have as sense of hypocritical morality , and Most Importantly it’s not for Parents !!

Technically also this film is brilliant Art direction , Editing , Music , all these deserve a special mention .

In the Acting department , the three main roles are played extremely well by the actors getting into the skin of the character , Shenaz and Poorna do their part well , and Vijay Razz as the Smuggling Gang leaders is brilliant along with the Guy who Says “(Knocking on a hotel room door )Sir ,Loondrry”.

Dialogues in the film are exceptional which is one of the main reason this movie works .

Director Abhinay Deo and writer Akshat Varma have created a movie which easily connects with its tare get audience and no one else , A film which is does not try to hide its intentions behind cheeky double meaning dialogues , there is generous usage of Expletives from both English and hindi.

On the whole Delhi belly is an amazing 1 hr 30 minute ride , which is not spoilt by any unnecessary breaks like an interval or song sequence , and a film which should not be missed if you can stomach it .

I just watched Va Quarter Cutting today morning , even though it was raining cats and dogs I had to go to the movies because I had booked the tickets yesterday @ Ags cinemas and I didn’t want to waste my cash.

Now to be honest I was not expecting a laugh riot , and from the trailer itself you can guess that its was not going to be very funny and it might be a little mokkai(click for definition) , but it was not that bad actually. It was a smile riot , I never stopped smiling , but it has got its Laughable moments though.

Va Quarter Cutting Trailer.

<Spoiler Warning >

The story of Va-Qc is pretty lame if heard in one line like this “Sura goes in search of a Quarter cutting through the night ”. But when you expand it a bit more it gets a bit more interesting , Sura(short for Sundarrajan, played by Shiva) is an obvious Vijay fan from Coimbatore is on his way to Saudi Arabia in search of work . He lands in Chennai on his way there and meets his to-be brother-in-law Marthandam(SPB Charan) , who is a mattu doctor(veterinary doctor). On hearing that Alcohol is banned in Saudi Arabia , Sura craves for a quarter cutting the night before he is to leave for Saudi,and incidentally all the wine-shops in the city are closed due to elections. So begins his mis-adventure in search of a Quarter cutting during which he meets all kinds of Quirky Characters, almost like a Guy Ritchie movie, but not that ingenious but still the characters are pretty interesting , characters like ,the ’Self Suicidal’ Saro (Lekha Washington) , the Villains Prince and King(both played by John Vijay) , Chinna Annan and Periya Thambi , the guy who is committed to performing Arson on vehicles, Vettu and Kutthu , Baby face (VJ Craig) , Chandru(Cameo by Arya) the auto racer from Oram Po and so on .

The events in the course of the night are also interesting , like the item song by Sura and Marthandam ,Sura “Suttufying”(Stealing) the Red car , the Gambling games and so on .

Teaser of the item song.

There are also some unexpected twists like the real identity of Marthandam as Singam .

The story lags a bit in parts until intermission but post interval it picks up a bit of pace .

</Spoiler Warning>

The USPs of Va~Qc are the screenplay , the dialogues and the Quirky Characters .

Dialogues like ‘Grape’ for ‘Group rape’ , ‘muttakose’ reference for Saro’s intelligence ,also some dialogues have very implicit double meanings , like when Prince is about to cut Sura’s hands Sura says that because he can’t look at women in Saudi his hands are very important to him.

The technical team have done a good job . Nirav Shah’s lens perfectly captures the mood of the film which is fully set at night. Editing by Anthony is really crisp and noteworthy , G V Prakashkumar’s music is good but when you watch it on screen the songs really come alive.

On the acting front Shiva and Charan fit their parts to the T , but the real surprise is John Vijay who steals the show as the father son duo Prince and King.Lekha Washington as Saraswathi is underused but still she plays her part well as the ‘Self Suicidal’ student , and ends up looking really cute .The others actors also perform well.Overall good casting .

Directors Pushkar and Gayatri should be applauded for trusting the audience’s intelligence , and daring to make a ‘different film’ which may even get a cult status .However like all avant-garde works this film is not for everyone , and many may find this kind satirical-comedy boring or repulsive .One needs a casual and sporty attitude to really enjoy this movie.

The main draw-back of this film is that its not a Laugh riot , and some parts get a bit boring .

But Overall it is a rainy morning well spent , This is a fun ride that needs to be tried out .

So if you are Jobless and have 2hrs and 15mins to spare , definitely give Va~Qc a try , you might actually end up enjoying yourself .

Movies are a very powerful medium , A really honest and well worked story can do wonders to the way the audience perceive the world. The real power of movies can be harnessed only when the story takes the front seat and star power takes the back. One such Film is “The Last Station”

The Last station directed by Michael Hoffman is a biopic of the legendary Russian writer Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, during his last days .

Before watching this movie I had never heard of Tolstoy or of ” war and peace ” , but this movie totally takes you to Yasnaya Polyana the place where Tolstoy was born is place where the movie takes place during the year 1910.

Now before you read any further about this movie I would like to warn you that this is not your usual commercial melodrama , this is in many ways a really ‘artsy‘ film , and not meant for people who have no patience .

After looking at real life photographs of the characters in the movie , I was amazed at how really good the casting in the movie was . Everybody from Tolstoy’s daughter Sasha to Vladimir Chertkov to Tolstoy himself looked and acted like their real life counterparts. I was really impressed at the casting of Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Paul Giamatti as Vladimir Chertkov.

Moving to the acting department every actor in the movie has performed his/her brilliantly , but i was really impressed with Helen Mirren who plays Tolstoy’s wife Countess Sophia Tolstaya , its a pity that she did not win the Academy award.Now there is no need for me to really say anything about Christopher Plummer , anybody who has seen any of his previous movies knows that he is one of the best performers out there.

Now if that has not yet convinced you to watch this really inspiring and moving film , continue reading….

The Story starts with Valentin Bulgakov played by James McAvoy (who is again in a really meaningful role after “The last King of Scotland”), going to Yasnaya Polyana and joining as Tolstoy’s secretary, Vladimir Chertkov wants Valentin to know about Sophia Tolstaya’s actions because she is against Tolstoian Movement and its Principles , and what follows is a melodrama which ends in a very befitting climax.

So go and watch The Last Station immediately if you like really meaningful cinema where the story and screenplay are the real heroes . They just don’t make many films like this anymore .